Towards New Notions of "Cultures": Mapping the Past or Surveying the Future?

The notion of culture is an expansive one, and its definitions have been drawn and redrawn by different scholars and theorists, stressing different dimensions and focusing on different perspectives (Jacobs and Hanharan, 2005). In the past, this notion was at the centre of the sociological debate, for example, in relation to the process of globalization (Featherstone 1990; Pieterse 2009), to the formation of individual and collective identities (Melucci, 2003; Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen, Smelser, Sztompka, 2004), to the construction of national identities (Gupta, Ferguson 1992; De Cillia, Reisigl, Wodak, 1999), to the processes of commemoration and the shapes of public memories (Bodnar 1993; Schudson 1993; Wagner-Pacifici, Schwartz 1991; Wagner-Pacifici 1996; Phillips 2004). It was analysed in relation to gender issues (MacCormack, S t r a t h e r n 2001) and t o multiculturalism (Parekh 2000), and also in relation to new boundaries and processes of social exclusion (Lamont and Molnàr, 2002). Different kinds of culture were considered, such as high and pop culture, material and symbolic culture, dominant and marginal cultures (counter-cultures and subcultures). This notion was analysed in relation to the arts in general and their capacity for becoming resources for the civil society and for the nation-state (Zolberg, 1996). It was related to the media system (Alasuutari, 1999). It was also explored in relation to our definitions of individual identities, bodies and environment.